REVIEW: To Rome with Love

 There are no spoilers in this review.

PLOT: The lives of some visitors and residents of Rome and the romances, adventures and predicaments they get into.


THE GOOD: Casting. Like most of Woody Allen's recent films, To Rome with Love features a great handpicked cast. Allen continues to use Juliet Taylor as a casting director ever since Annie Hall, I believe. She was joined by Patricia Kerrigan DiCerto and Béatrice Kruger for this film and I think they did a great job. Since To Rome with Love is a vignette film, you can already consider this an ensemble cast movie. Of course Woody Allen is in it and he gave his character all the funniest lines in the film. Alec Baldwin is there... being Alec Baldwin, I guess. Jesse Eisenberg plays his typical nervous and timid character and Ellen Page does her best job at being more outgoing and aggressive. Roberto Benigni was brought back from the dead. Penélope Cruz plays a hooker. Judy Davis plays Woody Allen's 20-years younger wife. And Alison Pill returns after her marvelous job in Allen's Midnight in Paris to play an American tourist. Phew...

JESSE EISENBERG: "Mr. Director! Alec keeps licking his finger and touching my arm!"

Location. Rome. I visited Rome on a three-day weekend once with Bethany and one of my best friends, Steve. It really is a beautiful city, but you can see it in a couple days, easily. Allen hit most of the popular sightseeing spots like Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Roman Forum, but most of the time these places are only used because they're famous. The majority of good scenes take place indoors or in some unknown location where characters are talking.

THE BAD: Endings/Characters. While the casting sure is fun, where the characters go and what they do is not. I loved the first half of this film and the introductions to all four stories. Let's break some of them down in non-spoiler ways:

1) Alec Baldwin plays a famous architect who vacationing in Rome, attempting to find his old stomping grounds. That's when Jesse Eisenberg recognizes him and invites him for coffee at he and his girlfriend's apartment. That's where Eisenberg's character finds out that his girlfriend's best friend, Ellen Page, is coming to visit.
Great premise, and you feel like you know where this story is going, but there's a small surprise. This was probably the most obscure vignette of the four with an interesting communication technique that one is not typically used to seeing. When all is said and done though, I didn't like any of the characters. I thought the main ones where scummy.

2) Alison Pill is an American tourist in Rome when she falls in love with a local who speaks good English. When their relationship evolves into something more serious, her parents come to visit Italy. Her dad, played by Mr. Allen, happens to hear her soon-to-be father-in-law singing in the shower and it turns out that he has an amazing voice. Being a musician, he tries to convince him to audition for opera.
Again, another amazing setup by Allen, and this one probably has the best payoff. Out of the four vignettes, this was my favorite to follow, but even the end gets kind of stale and pointless.

Woody watching To Rome with Love.

3) Roberto Benigni plays a normal, middle-class, everyman Roman who walks out to his car in his way to work one morning and is bombarded by the media and paparazzi. He doesn't know why he is all of a sudden so famous, but he goes along with it.
This vignette is Woody Allen's little informative letter to actors and celebrities and probably has the best message, which is spelled out completely at the end.

4) Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi play a newlywed couple from a small town visiting his relatives in Rome. When Mastronardi's character gets lost on the way to the salon, Tiberi gets mixed up in a hilarious situation where Penélope Cruz mistake him for a client she is supposed to... ahem... "see."
Man, so much potential in this one, too, but in the end, again, scumbags. I don't understand it because the story seems so original and pure, but Allen appears to muck it up with this sexual thing. I mean, I'm no prude or anything, but I really hated the main characters in this one by the end.

So, you should see the trend. Fresh stories, ideas, and characters that turn into either nothingness or dirtiness. I don't know, maybe I'm just more aware of this after reading Joel's blog entry about healthy marriages in movies. While thinking about others that I enjoy, I realized that there aren't very many. To Rome with Love is certainly one that I would not include

She looks like she has really, really big... heels.

THE END: To Rome with Love feels like four Woody Allen screenplays without enough substance to stand on their own, so they were made into one vignette film, with a central focus on Italy. If we're being honest, this movie could have taken place in any of the great romantic cities. I like a good vignette film as much as the next person, but there is nothing to like about the characters in this movie, and so I was left only mildly amused. There's a little Woody Allen charm here and there, but nothing that knocks your socks off like Midnight in Paris. Don't believe me? Go read what the critics say after giving this film a 44% on Rotten Tomatoes while giving Midnight in Paris a 93%. Even if you are an Allen fanatic, you don't need to be in a rush to see this one. Just wait for it to play on TV or something. *sigh* I guess we'll always have Paris.


DISCUSS: What did you think of To Rome with Love? What are your favorite Woody Allen films? Did you like Midnight in Paris? What are some of your favorite vignette films? Are you looking forward to Allen's next film with Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Louis C.K., Michael Emerson, and Sally Hawkins?

Man, Roberto Benigni really has had to fight his popularity after his brilliant 2002 success, Pinocchio.